Sprezzatura in Academia: is the myth of brilliance the aesthetic of cool?

Baldasar Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (1528) is a series of dialogues between hip Italian Renaissance courtiers who stayed over at the court of Guidobaldo da Montefeltro and Elizabetta Gonzaga and who debated a range of topics over several evenings. Their discussions ranged on which sport looks good to play (apparently, tennis), which musical instrument to learn (not the trumpet, just don't...), what knowledge to acquire in the humanities, and how to behave towards peers, and social superiors and inferiors. 

The Book of the Courtier tells its reader how to be the perfect courtier. Re-reading this lively and creative work over the summer, I considered that a lot of Castiglione's advice for Renaissance noblemen and women be lifted out and go straight into handbooks for placement directors.

Castiglione's Courtier deals with nebulous qualities that are hard to quantify or articulate but that definitely can make or break a courtier/scholar: prestige, charisma, social connection, and finally, the quality that Castiglione is best-known for as his novel philosophical contribution, sprezzatura.

One might translate "sprezzatura" as studied nonchalance, but it is probably best left untranslated. 

Here is how Castiglione describes it this quality: 

I have discovered a universal rule which seems to apply more than any other in all human actions or words: namely, to steer away from affectation at all costs, as if it were a rough and dangerous reef, and (to use perhaps a novel word for it) to practise in all things a certain nonchalance [sprezzatura] which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless. I am sure that grace springs especially from this, since everyone knows how difficult it is to accomplish some unusual feat perfectly, and so facility in such things excites the greatest wonder; whereas, in contrast, to labour at what one is doing.

Given the enormous influence of Castiglione in wider culture, it is perhaps not so surprising that sprezzatura is at work in academia and other cultural milieus where reputation is a precious good. How to deal with a job market and an economy of rewards if you have so many qualified candidates, all with stellar publications, teaching evaluations, letters of reference, grants and more? How to decide who to invite as a prestigious keynote?

Quantitative measures cannot capture decisions in these domains, because there are just so many candidates for so few spots. So, decisions are sometimes (or often?) informed by the more nebulous and hard to articulate qualities of a candidate. We might say she is a "rising star" and (this sounds 1990s) "boy-wonder" (I'm using this as a sociological term of art, though there is a gender dimension to it). Such nebulous qualities also apply to senior scholars who are considered for tenured and endowed positions, they play a role in the promotion process, in who gets awarded grants, and much more. 

We see concrete evidence for the role of sprezzatura in many domains of academic life. One example is the lack of "grindstone words" in letters of reference for candidates who are considered to be brilliant. A study on letters of recommendations for candidates for jobs in chemistry and biochemistry reveals an interesting pattern: people who have more "standout words" (words relating to the candidate's exceptional standing and excellence) and "ability words" have comparably fewer "grindstone words" (words indicating how hard the candidate worked).

We also see it in this (by now, classic) study by Sarah-Jane Leslie and colleagues, which shows that increased expectations about brilliance (the idea that excellence in one's field relies on qualities that just cannot be taught) correlate with lower gender and racial diversity in specific fields. In fields where there are widespread beliefs about innate and untaught brilliance, there is lower representation of women and African Americans. 

Given the insidious nature of brilliance expectations, and the way they favor people of high social class (who have had more training in how to behave this way), men, and white people, one might think we should just get rid of this quality. 

After all, isn't it hypocritical?

The person exhibiting sprezzatura is selling us an illusion. In reality, he worked and studied hard before he was able to write this fluently, she did actually submit this paper to five other journals before she triumphantly announced its publication in a great journal, and so on.

The hiding of the work that lies behind academic excellence also discourages junior scholars. They see a seasoned academic exhibiting sprezzatura and they think "I am just not cut out for this." 

All these are important things to recognize, and should be recognized more often. It is important for advisors to explain to their grad students that scholars are made, not born, and that it takes diligence, patience, effort and luck to achieve a high level of academic accomplishments.

Nevertheless, it is interesting to recognize, as Castiglione did, that some of our social engagements and interactions are essentially aesthetic in nature. When we admire a scholar, our admiration has aesthetic qualities, notably the sense of wonder, the appreciation of grace and coolness.  

Here's an example of how this is expressed. A philosopher recently published a single-authored monograph (not his first!) with OUP and made an announcement on Facebook. Here are some reactions to this: 

"Wow, how are you able to do it!"

"There must be duplicates of you!"

"I don't understand how you get to sleep and have a life"

(I have altered the specific comments but kept their general tenor so as to protect anonymity and not embarrass people, as this particular philosopher is a very sweet, modest person who is not given to (humble) bragging but just writes very productively.) 

Tom Cochrane argues in his Aesthetic Value of the World that "the cool" is the aesthetic successor to sprezzatura. In his view, the cool (like sprezzatura) is a kind of studied indifference, an aristocratic quality that is antithetical to cuteness (you cannot be cute and exemplify sprezzatura). It is closely linked to grace, and combines "elements of aesthetic power or sublimity, specifically an elevation above the passions and indifference to danger ... Combining these values, the cool is an aesthetic of easy control."  

Cochrane argues in his book for a wide range of aesthetic appreciations in our everyday engagements with the world. Maybe we don't recognize, as philosophers in the past who had more attention for etiquette, that aesthetic appreciation plays such an important role in how our social interactions are shaped. 

Sprezzatura might have more ancient biological origins in animal signaling, such as handicap signalling (e.g., stotting in gazelles in front of lions). It is so much more impressive to make it appear that one is not at the very limit of one's ability, but that there is still room for more. The gazelle who signals to a lion that she is very fit with high jumps sells the illusion that there is much more where that came from. Hence, also, the connection of the cool/sprezzatura with control. The person who signals that she is not at the limit of her ability is perfectly in control. And that control elicits admiration.

The admiration, as authors such as Keltner and Haidt have emphazised in their discussion of awe, has an important social function. We accord people who exhibit nonchalant coolness, grace and control respect, admiration, and awe, and these feelings correlate with social deference, so a person who is admired, and of whom we stand in awe achieves higher social states.

In signaling theory, the value of a signal of the kind that sprezzatura sends (not a cooperative signal, but one given in competition, either directly with the recipient or with others who vie for the same good the recipient is able to give out) is that it should not be easy to fake. 

This is the case for sprezzatura. True, the person exhibiting it has studied and worked hard, and hides that fact, but only once she has reached a sufficient level of skill is she able to successfully conceal this. I recall how when I studied music, my music teachers advised me to not choose the most difficult piece. Rather, choose an easier piece that is still quite difficult for the grade I was trying to achieve. The reason for this is that the judges look more favorably upon an easier piece (that is still challenging enough) that is played in such a way that suggest I could play harder pieces, than a piece where they would see me visibly struggle. And though this looks deceptive, it is in fact honest, because I did in fact play pieces for the exam that were not at the top of my ability. 

I think sprezzatura would be less inherently problematic if we recognized that (1) it is an aesthetic, we delight in seeing it in others and, I bet (occasionally, if lucky) eliciting the sense in others, it is part of the broader aesthetic of the academic life and thus confers some value to it, (2) it is in part an illusion--it is also, paradoxically, a very honest signal as you cannot easily fake the studied nonchalance unless you have the skill, (3) we should not tie it to gender, race, class and other problematic and exclusionary faultlines, (4) we might think carefully and more deliberately about which domains we will let this aesthetic play a role in our decisions, and where it is much better that we resist its role (I think, for instance, it should play less of a role in hiring, and have argued against the upfront request of letters of reference for related reasons). 

Curious to see what the Cocooners think!

Comments

[Tom Cochrane]

Interesting Helen. The aesthetics of character matters to us when we make friends, so it's probably also relevant in hiring decisions. But effortless mastery is not a quality I'd intuitively associate with job candidates! I'd also be wary when writing a reference not to create expectations of quick-wittedness or brilliance that might not come across under pressure.

I like the comparison to music competitions. It reminds me that probably the best job talk I ever gave was on a subject I'd mastered years before so only had to brush up a bit.

[Wendy Lochner]

Published in 2018:

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/sprezzatura/9780231175821